SHC Issues Contempt Notice to CAA Over Shaheen Air Dispute

Senior officials of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) are to appear before the Sindh High Court on July 31 following the contempt of court issued based on the application of Shaheen Air International (SAI).

The notice read:

It is ordered that you, the above-named defendants are hereby restrained from taking any ‘adverse action’ and the operation of letter dated July 19, 2018, shall also remain suspended; however, subject to payment of outstanding amount in installments as per order dated July 16, 2018 as per above order.

Hassan Baig, who took the charge of Director General CAA in June, Air Marshal Usaid-ur-Rehman (Retd), the Additional Director General and Tahir Sikander, Manager at Lahore airport have been issued the notice after an application was filed by SAI under the Order 39 Rule 1 & 2 CPC, read with Section 151 CPC.

Background

The dispute between CAA and SAI is due to the outstanding arrears of Rs 1.5 billion owed by the latter, which have proved to be a bone of contention between the two parties.

Earlier, due to the payment dispute, around 300 Pakistanis were stuck in Guangzhou China as the SAI flight wasn’t allowed to return to Pakistan. It has been more than 72 hours however, with the plane yet to return home. As per reports, the CAA hasn’t issued an order in writing that will permit SAI to bring the passengers back home.